[2] He is of English, Portuguese, and Singaporean Chinese descent,[3] and identifies as a member of the Eurasian community,[4] with his branch of the Goodenough family having first arrived in Singapore in the 1800s.

He graduated as the dux of his high school in 1992, and then began work for an accounting firm, Hendry Rae & Court.

At the same time, he attended night classes at Curtin University, eventually receiving a Bachelor of Commerce (BComm) degree in 1998.

[6] In 2003, Goodenough returned to Curtin for two years to obtain a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, and later also attended an executive development program (EDP) at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in Philadelphia, USA.

[7] Goodenough was re-elected as the member for Moore at the 2022 federal election, but suffered a -11.0% swing in the two-party preferred vote.

[22][23] In 2018, Goodenough supported Peter Dutton's call to treat white South African farmers, who are sometimes targets of attacks, as refugees.

In 2016, he wrote an article for Yahoo!, which was also published in The West Australian newspaper, entitled, "The complexities of gay marriage are too risky", in which he claimed that legalising same-sex marriage would create, "an enormous cost to society in terms of dealing with social dysfunction, psychological and mental health issues", implying that children raised by same-sex couples would suffer mental illness.

[31] In October 2017, it was reported in The West Australian that a Year 12 student from Duncraig Senior High School, Grace Gouldstone, had refused to accept an award sponsored by Goodenough due to his beliefs over same-sex marriage.

[32][33] In February 2016, former Liberal MP for the Western Australian state electorate of Hillarys, Rob Johnson claimed that Goodenough had encouraged members of non-mainstream, evangelical Christian church groups to "takeover" branches within the electorate of Moore, including the Globalheart Church in Joondalup, of which Goodenough is a member.

"[34] Johnson also alleged that Goodenough had set up "employment bureaus" to find job positions for members of the Globalheart Church in his electorate office.

"[34] In 2019, claims emerged that Goodenough had "[taken] a group of overseas visitors to local businesses while being the director of a company that is paid for striking export deals".